ABSTRACT
Irish Aid’s growth path Irish Aid in 1996 totalled IR£ 106 million or 0.29% as a share of GNP. Estimates for 1997 indicate that aid expenditure will further increase to IR£ 122 million or 0.31% of GNP. This is moving towards the average EU performance, but behind the 1993 Aid Strategy Plan interim target of 0.4% of GNP in 1997.1 While the government has allocated significant absolute increases in ODA since 1993, the average annual increase in terms of share of GNP is less than 0.03%. As recently as the World Food Summit, the government restated its commitment ‘to increasing Ireland’s ODA by 0.05% each year, so that we continue to progress towards the UN target’.The main reasons cited for not meeting this annual target are rapid GNP growth and internal capacity constraints in the Development Cooperation Division (DCD) due to the current public service recruitment embargo.
